67. From Screen Addiction to Sextortion: Your Guide to Digital Safety with Tech Insider Ashley

On Part 3 of our Series on Tech and Child Mental Health, Dr. Elise Fallucco continues her conversation with Ashley (Tech Insider, Senior Manager of Global Risk Assessment at Twitch)  about:

• "Screen addiction" 
• How to talk with kids and teens about online privacy and potential dangers like groomers and sextortion in an age-appropriate way
•  Go-to resources for families navigating the digital world like 
  • The Family IT Guy on Social Media and online 
  • App/game parental control webpages
  • Common Sense Media
• How to take down inappropriate content online 
  • Report directly to the app/platform 
  • Where/how to report child sexual exploitation
    • The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTip line 
  • When to involve the FBI
• Are kids with ADHD  more vulnerable to problematic screen use and cyberbullying?
• Can heavy screen use cause inattention, impatience, impulsivity and ADHD-like symptoms?

Check out our website PsychEd4Peds.com for more resources.
Follow us on Instagram @psyched4peds

Transcript

Dr. Elise Fallucco 0:21

In our last couple episodes, we talked with Tech Insider and senior manager of Global Risk Assessment for Twitch about what are tech tips, products or strategies that parents can use to keep kids safe ish online? And today we're gonna continue our conversation with Ashley about how do you talk to kids about these risks and what are resources that we can share with families to help them as they're navigating this brave new digital world. But before we get back to that conversation, I just wanted to say a word about red flags. Parents in your practice may ask you, how can we tell if our child is developing problems online or problems using digital media, whether it's video games or scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, and here are a couple of thoughts. One sign can be that they have a lot of trouble separating from their device or switching tasks from spending time online or playing games to interacting in the real world. So this gets a little bit tricky because it's a bit of a gray area. A lot of kids enjoy spending time online and are having fun scrolling through TikTok or playing on social media. And so when their parents say, Hey, you've gotta stop, of course they're going to be a little grumpy, annoyed, irritated, even angry, but you would know that there's more of a problem if your child or teen's reaction is much more dramatic if they're not able to quickly reset after being annoyed if. Asking somebody to turn off screens results in a 15 to 30 minute tantrum or any sort of major aggression that would give you a sign that this is more than just a little bit of annoyance. And these red flags may be even harder to tell if a child is neurodivergent. Meaning if they already have a DHD or autism, we would expect they may have more trouble transitioning from tasks and would be more likely to get upset. And so what we're looking for is an outsized dramatic reaction to. Being asked to turn off screens that would be outside of the norm or outside of what you would typically expect. Other red flags or sort signs that there could be something wrong would be that they're spending less time in person with friends and family that. They're no longer doing some of the things that they used to love to do and instead are using that time to spend online. Also, if there's any obvious dysfunction, like grades are slipping or homework has stopped getting turned in. Really, if parents notice that their children are spending more and more time isolated with their device. Those are all yellow or red flags. And finally, if parents notice that their kids Are using screens to regulate their mood, and that's the only way that they can feel. Okay. And otherwise their mood doesn't seem very happy or that they're chronically irritable, those would of course be red flags that there's something going on. Then this brings us back to our conversation with Ashley Tech Insider who's gonna talk to us about how do we approach these conversations with kids? So Ashley. This is a new world for all of us as parents because obviously we didn't grow up with this level of digital technology. And so we don't have a model for, how do you talk to kids about the possibility of groomers or about sextortion? As parents, we certainly hope that our kids are not involved in any of this, but sadly,, the risk is greater than what we realize. According to a study that is in press, in the Journal of Adolescent Health that surveyed a national sample of US teens, ages 13 to 17, one out of three teens reported that they've engaged in sexting. by either sending or receiving explicit content. Or both. So this is not something that happens to everyone in a million, unfortunately, this is happening fairly often, certainly in our high schoolers. so this is something we need to be keeping an eye out for, and it makes it extra important that we talk to our kids about the potential risks of this behavior. And yet we don't have any model for how to have these conversations, and sometimes that feels really intimidating.

Ashley 4:21

100%. I think, parents feel like it's awkward. So parents are gonna be like I don't wanna tell my 8-year-old that there are groomers. If you don't they are targeting eight year olds. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's like you have to address it head on.

Dr. Elise Fallucco 4:39

Do you have any advice about how to approach these conversations or when to start talking to your kids about some of the big risks?

Ashley 4:47

I think it's really hard, like you said, to talk about some of these topics, especially for people of a certain generation that may think this is taboo or there's a stigma around some of these things. But I do think you really need to be as honest as you can about these dangers and what they look like with your kids because if you try and talk around it too much, they're not gonna be able to identify it. You don't have to say, Hey, there's a terrorist out there. You can say there is a bad person who might wanna show scary things online or, you're not gonna call somebody a pedophile, but you may say you. There are people out there who want to harm kids, right? Whatever is within your comfort level that is up to you and your, decision making as a parent and what you feel like is appropriate for your child and their age. But my advice is to really try and lean in and get over any awkwardness you may feel as a parent to try and be as transparent as possible so that you give your kids the tools they need to then come back to you and say, Hey, there's something not right with what I'm doing online. Something strange is happening.

Dr. Elise Fallucco 5:59

Just naming it upfront and saying, here's what can happen. There can be people who pretend that they are kids or pretend that they are teenagers like you so that they can develop a relationship with you and eventually, potentially get you to do something that they can use, to earn money or get you to do something that. They can use against you. While you think that you can trust this friend from your game who says that they're your age or who says that they really think that you're cool and talented, you never really know. And, you just wanna be extra careful.

Ashley 6:33

Exactly. If you wanna dumb it down even more for the little kids, you can even just phrase it around the private information that we talked about, right? No private picture, no private names, no private information. And that kind of gets at some of the parental concerns you could say don't share pictures with people, or if you wanna share a picture with somebody come tell me. And let's do that together.

Dr. Elise Fallucco 6:54

So you're saying for younger kids,, maybe talk about how there are strangers online who may try to hurt you or may pretend to be your friend, but you can't really trust them. So we only wanna talk with people that we already know in person in real life, our friends and family. And then you emphasize that we wanna keep information private. No real names, no photos of people, faces, bodies. And you can also tie that into the fact that this is why we need to supervise you. Why there are no screens in the bedroom. Why we need you to be playing on your tablet in our family room where we can see you. It's so we can help keep you safe. And then when you're talking to older kids, like teens and, and definitely kids in high school, it's okay to ask if they've heard of sexting, if they understand what it means, and if they have any friends who. Have gotten involved in that or any classmates or if they've personally been asked to participate in that, and that's a good time to also just remind them that anything that you share online, whether it's pics or videos, even livestream, can be permanent and it can be shared with people that you don't want seeing those things. And I know we talked about this in one of our earlier episodes, but it's so important to be the person that your kids can come to when they run into trouble. And many of you may be familiar with some of the stories of kids who have gotten inadvertently involved in sextortion or various cases, and they become so wrapped up in it and the bad actors are asking them for large sums of money that they can't provide. And because they're so ashamed and so afraid of talking to their parents, it often results in. Kids and teens feeling massive amounts of emotional distress and often engaging in self-harm or even death by suicide. So while this is awkward and uncomfortable, it really has the potential to make a difference in a child's life.

Ashley 8:48

That's right.

Dr. Elise Fallucco 8:49

So shifting topics, Ashley, do you know of any resources that families can use to help their kids develop safe online habits in addition to the a a P family media plan that we talked about?

Ashley 9:00

I really like following the family IT guy on Instagram. He has a lot of good recommendations, for tech usage, but he can also, recommend how to do parental controls and he'll also bring in current events or current news to keep you up to date on things. So he's a good resource there. And then I really would just recommend that you take stock of all the apps and all the games and all the things that your kids are using and go to those games and apps, websites, that is where you're gonna actually learn about each product that they're using, and on the help page, they'll have information for parental controls. And that's where you're gonna get into the nitty gritty of what you can do on those sites to help your kids. Because every single app has different parental controls. So if your kid uses Instagram and they use Facebook and they use Pinterest, all three of them may have similar rules, but the way that their parental controls work are gonna be completely different. So you need to do parental controls on each individual one. And so that's where the resource pages come in handy there.

Dr. Elise Fallucco 10:09

Okay, so go to the family IT guy on Instagram. And then check out the websites for the various apps or video games that kids are involved in. Another little thing that you and I had talked about is Common Sense Media. We use that to look up ratings for movies and recommendations about safety and violence content. But they also have a page for video games and for apps. So you can see how child friendly a given app is. Now final, shifting gears into a pretty hard topic. Given the data that so many US teens are participating in sexting, I think it'd be important to share with listeners about what to do if somehow a picture or video or some content makes it online and you need it to go away. I.

Ashley 10:55

If something happens to your child where you need help taking content down, there are a couple ways you can go about requesting help. The first is you can go directly to the company to ask for help in getting the content taken down. So you can go directly to those companies websites or their apps. And some apps, depending on the company, have a button or tool directly in the app to take action. So when you report to the company, you would have to explain, why you're reporting something and, it could be something like there's a sexually exploitive image or video, or it could even be something like hate speech or any other, harmful content. Once that report is made, the company would look into it and determine if it's violative of the rules and then take it down as necessary. The other thing you can do is if there are, nudes or sexually exploitive images or videos of your child out there, there are resources for you to get it taken down. So the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, also known as ncmec. Can, help you with that. So they have a cyber tip line where you can tell them where the image or video is online, and then they can help analyze the content and try and find, where it is and notify the companies and work with the companies to monitor for its removal. And then finally, the FBI has resources as well. And if you go to their website, they have a violent crime page, and this is where you would report something like Sextortion. And so those are three different ways you can, can work to get that content down. So again, report directly to the company, report to ncmec, depending on the content and report to the FBI, depending on the content.

Dr. Elise Fallucco 12:56

and obviously we hope that we're never gonna be in that situation, but that's really helpful to know. A lot of parents wouldn't know where to start and how to protect their kid or to get things taken off of the internet. It feels like I'm very clumsy in the tech world and as a parent I'm constantly trying to keep up with the latest app and the coolest video game and figure out what's going on. And so it's really helpful that you're able to share your own fluency and give us really practical tips that we can use. I wanna say a huge thank you to you, Ashley, for sharing your expertise, your time, your talent with all of our listeners. I know they really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Ashley 13:34

You're welcome. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Elise Fallucco 13:37

Please know you are always welcome on the podcast and we appreciate all of your expertise. Now since we finished our conversation with Ashley, we wanted to shift gears and take a look into the inbox. Many of you listeners have written in with questions related to this text series. One of our listeners wondered, are kids with a DHD affected differently by technology? The reason why I'm asking is I find I have to monitor screen time more closely in my one child with a DHD. Compared with her sibling, and I'm not sure if it's related to A DHD. Well, this is an excellent question So I'll start out by acknowledging that the literature is still growing in this field, and we're still trying to wrap our heads around what is different about kids with anxiety depression or A DHD, especially when it comes to how they're interacting with digital media. There have been a number of studies of kids and teens with A DHD looking at how do they interact online and in the digital world, and does that put them at risk for problems? So put simply, do kids and teens with A DHD need to be extra careful when they're online and or engaging in social media? So we have dozens of studies all pointing to the fact that kids with A DHD are much more likely to develop problematic use of digital media, meaning they're much more likely to get sucked into gaming and social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, et cetera. Now, this may seem intuitive to a number of us because first of all, we know that all of this digital media is designed to be really engaging. And that's why we as adults have trouble sometimes exceeding our Instagram limits or spending a little bit too much time online. But people with A DHD may be particularly enticed by the immediate rewards and kind of constant gratification that you can find online some people refer to people with A DHD as being dopamine driven, meaning that they have a strong drive to seek out and experience pleasure or to do things or engage in activities that kind of boost their brain's natural dopamine. And we know that screens are designed to do exactly that, and so it makes sense that people with A DHD may have a particular vulnerability to develop problematic online use. Okay, so part of the answer is yes, the kids with A DHD are much more likely to develop problematic use of digital media to get sucked in. But what about the opposite question? Are kids who spend a lot of time online more likely to develop a DHD symptoms? Well, one systematic literature review looked at that question and what they found may surprise you. Essentially, what they found is that those kids and teens. Who had this excessive use and who were spending excessive amounts of time online had trouble stopping, were also more likely to develop increasing symptoms of A DHD, like inattention and poor impulse control. And so are the screens somehow rewiring our brains and making us more impulsive, less patient, and less able to pay attention to one thing for a long time? We don't fully know, but we suspect that might be true. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there's more. It's not just that kids with A DHD are more likely to develop what was formerly called screen addiction, but they're also more likely to be involved in cyber bullying, both as a bully and as a victim. So to summarize and fully answer our listener's question, yes. Your child with A DHD who you do seem to have to monitor more closely with screens is at increased risk for what was formally called screen addiction and cyber bullying. than her sibling, who does not have a DHD. And just a reminder to all of our listeners, if you have any other questions related to tech or child mental health in general, please reply to our newsletter or send us a message via our website. Psyched the number four peds.com or through our Instagram handle at psyched, the number four peds. Thanks. Thanks again for listening. We hope you enjoyed this tech series. If you did, please click the plus or Follow button. On the show page in your podcast player so that you won't miss any episodes in the future. See you next time.